Massacre of Ignorance – Rohingya Muslims strangers on their land

“They [international organizations and UN] have never broken their silence or provided a single piece of information about what is going on there… this is a very clear sign that this work is the work of those the powerful that might is right; if you are mighty you give yourself the right to raise the issues that you want and you do not talk about the issues that do not boil down to your interests,” Ibrahim Mousawi told Press TV on Friday.

When last Friday, this statement broke out hardly a media had covered such incident with so much importance but our unfortunate approach of larger or main stream media has remained untouched so far.  The tale of Rohingya Muslim community has remained untold to the world of democracy and justice which still propagates itself as the promoter of these values to the world.

The Rohingya are a Muslim people who live in the Arakan region. As of 2012, 800,000 Rohingya live in Myanmar. According to the UN, they are one of the most persecuted minorities in the world.

AT a time when there is greater awakening world over about fundamental human rights, the hapless Rohingyas Muslims are being increasingly hit with target attacks that have included killings, rape and physical abuse. According to Amnesty International report, both the security forces and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists were carrying out attacks against Rohingyas Muslims who are denied of citizenship by the government because it considers them illegal settlers from Bangladesh who came in the 19th century when Myanmar was under British rule.

The government of Myanmar refuses to recognize Rohingyas, who it claims are not natives and classifies as illegal migrants, although the Rohingya are said to be Muslim descendants of Persian, Turkish, Bengali, and Pashtun origin, who migrated to Burma as early as the 8th century.  

These same words which I had read in a Bangladesh’s English daily ‘Independent’ who wrote about the plight of these innocent people and how Bangladesh is not been able to help out these people who are just coming to  it for the safer pastures.

And to my surprise I was shocked while reading a statement which bluntly spoke about the truth of the Burmese Military controlled politics that has been committing and had committed countless crimes related to ethnic cleansing in Burma.

The President of Myanmar Thein Sein said openly to the media that “we don’t recognize these Rohingyas and that’s why we are just removing /cleaning them, because they are not natives of this land, so we don’t want them to be here. They are living here from few centuries and who so ever or nation is eager to accept them, we will send these people there”.  

President Thein Sein, who has been praised for reform, on Wednesday unsuccessfully, requested UN help in resettling nearly one million Rohingya abroad. Critics likened it to mass deportation.

We wonder that the massacre of Rohingyas is taking place and the Western countries who claim to be torchbearer of the human rights are keeping their eyes shut. The trouble started in May that led to bloody skirmishes between the Buddhists and the Muslims spreading quickly to Myanmar’s coastal Rakhine state.

The government imposed emergency and deployed troops but thousands of houses were burnt down or destroyed and in the last few weeks, the Muslims generally and Rohingyas specifically are the targets and victims. Myanmar has long faced tension with many of its ethnic minorities who usually live in the border regions.

The UN refugee agency has also reported that many of them fled the sectarian violence through different means but were turned back by Bangladesh border authorities. Thus the poverty stricken refugees are left with no place to live and nothing to eat. We wonder that the Muslim countries are showing no concern at the sufferings of Rohingyas while the Western countries raise a particular issue only when they have interest in it and their media too follow the lines of the governments.

Aid has struggled to reach those affected by sectarian unrest in early June. The UN announced on Friday that 10 aid workers in Arakan state had been arrested, five were UN staff. Some have been charged, although the details remain unclear.

Rates of malnutrition among the Muslim Rohingya, who have borne the brunt of emergency measures implemented in the wake of fierce rioting in June between the minority group and the majority Arakanese, are said to be “alarming”. Most aid workers have either been evacuated or forced to flee in recent weeks.

“We are worried that malnutrition rates already have and will continue to rise dramatically; if free and direct humanitarian access accompanied by guaranteed security is not granted with the shortest delay, there’s no way they won’t rise,” said Tarik Kadir of Action Against Hunger.

Its staff were forced to leave northern Arakan state, where 800,000 Rohingya live and where malnutrition rates were already far above the global indicator for a health crisis. With scant medical care reaching the area, the situation is likely to worsen.

“There’s no way of measuring the impact over the past month because staff have either been evacuated or forced to flee,” he said. “And given that rainy season is under way, when you factor in all these other problems, we don’t need to measure it to know it’s a catastrophe.”

Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said it “would expect a strong international response” to any attempt to deport the Rohingya. HRW staff who recently returned from Arakan state said that while both Rohingya and Arakanese were complicit in “terrible violence” during the rioting, subsequent mass arrests “focused on Rohingya”.

“Local police, the military, and border police have shot and killed Rohingya during sweep operations, those detained are being held incommunicado,” she said.

A resident of Maungdaw in northern Arakan said he had witnessed Rohingya men and children as young as 12 being tortured in a police station in early July. After interrogating them about arson attacks in the town, police “handed them over” to Arakanese youths inside the station.

“I saw these youths burning the vital parts of old men with a cheroot [cigar] and also hitting young Muslim detainees with an iron rod.” The official death toll of the rioting and its aftermath has been put at 78, although the real figure may be much higher. International observers are banned from visiting northern Arakan state.

Since the law of 1982 refuses to recognise the Rohingya as Myanmar citizens and hundreds of thousands have fled to Bangladesh. The aid problems have coincided with a dramatic rise in food prices in Arakan.

Now that the Amnesty International has come out with a report of massive human rights violations, we hope the world would pay attention and come out with some concrete steps to reduce the sufferings of the Rohingyas Muslims.

According to Amnesty International report, the Muslim Rohingya people have continued to suffer from human rights violations under the Burmese Buddhist junta since 1978 and many have fled to neighboring Bangladesh as a result.

"The Rohingyas’ freedom of movement is severely restricted and the vast majority of them have effectively been denied Burma citizenship. They are also subjected to various forms of extortion and arbitrary taxation; land confiscation; forced eviction and house destruction; and financial restrictions on marriage. Rohingyas continue to be used as forced labourers on roads and at military camps, although the amount of forced labour in northern Rakhine State has decreased over the last decade."

 "In 1978 over 200,000 Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh, following the ‘Nagamin’ (‘Dragon King’) operation of the Myanmar army. Officially this campaign aimed at "scrutinising each individual living in the state, designating citizens and foreigners in accordance with the law and taking actions against foreigners who have filtered into the country illegally." This military campaign directly targeted civilians, and resulted in widespread killings, rape and destruction of mosques and further religious persecution."

"During 1991-92 a new wave of over a quarter of a million Rohingyas fled to Bangladesh. They reported widespread forced labour, as well as summary executions, torture, and rape. Rohingyas were forced to work without pay by the Burmese army on infrastructure and economic projects, often under harsh conditions. Many other human rights violations occurred in the context of forced labour of Rohingya civilians by the security forces."

With the UNHCR have credible reports that Bangladesh’s security forces are turning back the approaching Rohingya Muslim seeking asylum / refuge in the country, it has appealed to Bangladesh’s government to keep its borders open with Burma to provide safe passage to these innocent people fleeing from being victim of a national genocide.

United Nations refugee spokesman, Andrej Mahecic, says “We have a situation where we have first-hand reports of the Bangladeshi security forces turning the arrivals by boat," Mahecic said. "There are now a number of boats adrift in the mouth of the Naf River.  We have been talking to the Bangladeshi authorities and we hope that Bangladesh will, in line with its long tradition of hospitality with the people from Myanmar [Burma], will allow access to a safe haven and to assistance for these people.”
 
He added more by telling to the media that people on board these vessels are in desperate need of water, food and medical care.  Bangladeshi guards reportedly have turned back many boats carrying hundreds of people.  

This is while even Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi has kept quiet on the atrocities committed against the Rohingya Muslims.

Ironically, just days after she received a peace prize, Suu Kyi told reporters she did not know if Rohingyas were 'Burmese'.  

But as the day passes by and Monsoon pour downs its rain of equality on the unequal Burma, the truth remains still unheard and uncovered with those who say they are the promoters of the human rights. Media has also played very negligible role which has no viability to the fact still. Main Stream media has remained ignorant and even silent where only the stories of those are being covered which are of interests to their bosses not the community.  

This editorial is the joint work done by the Editorial Board of The Oslo Times, as an initiative to raise awareness and provide insight to this grave crisis of Rohingya Muslims in Burma.

©The Oslo Times - All Rights Reserved.